NICKEL BELT – France Gélinas, Ontario NDP Health Critic and MPP for Nickel Belt, released the following statement:
“Patients and their families will take little comfort in hearing more promises and seeing more delays from this Liberal government. All Ontarians should be able to trust that their most sensitive personal health information will be protected, but for far too long, Liberal inaction has allowed serious violations of patient privacy. Thousands of breaches have gone unreported to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and today the full scale of the problem remains a secret while patients are forced to live with the consequences.
“It is disappointing to see the Liberals delay real action to better protect patients. This is a familiar pattern. This spring the Liberals failed to ensure transparency and accountability in the funding of health care services in Ontario by passing Bill 78. It has now been 742 days and counting since the Liberals first introduced the Electronic Personal Health Information Protection Act, and the Liberals still have no timeline for when these long-overdue changes will take effect. The Minister could have introduced these changes last week, before MPPs left Queen’s Park, but the Liberals chose to wait until the start of the summer recess, forcing patients and their families to wait even longer.
“Clearly, the Liberals are more focused on selling off Hydro One and making cuts to our hospitals and schools, than delivering these important changes to better protect patients’ privacy at all times and in all medical facilities.”